Nanotechnological Skin Care That Keeps You Young

Eventually, nanotechnology may help us reverse aging at a cellular level. Until that day comes, we’ll have to be content with the ways that nanotechnology is being used in cosmetics to keep our skin more youthful and provide protection from harmful sunlight.

Vitamins and nutrients for that youthful glow

One company is using nanotechnology to deliver vitamins and other nutrients to your skin cells. Marie Louise Cosmetics uses a nanoemulsion to get these goodies to penetrate your skin. The nanoparticles in the three-layer emulsion are approximately 40 nm to 100 nm in diameter.

The company states that the nanoparticles in the emulsion are designed to penetrate farther into the skin than emulsions that use lager particles and to release vitamins from the outer layers of the nanoparticle as it passes through the outer layers of the skin.

Some ethical concerns about the use of nanoparticles in skin care products exist because there is little regulation and it’s not known if there could be long-term side effects.

Anti-aging products do some basic cellular repair

Although aging cannot yet be reversed, one company is using nanotechnology to do some basic cellular repair in skin. Lifeline Skin Care has a line of products that they claim can rejuvenate skin cells.

They use stem cells (the nonembryonic kind), which is a type of cell that has the capability to stimulate the rejuvenation of other cells. The stem cells produce proteins that direct cells to build new cells to repair damaged skin tissue. The company encapsulates the proteins in nanoparticles.

When you spread the serum containing the nanoparticles on your skin, they open, delivering proteins directly to your skin.

Make sunscreens without that icky white stuff

Once upon a time, lifeguards and others who spent a lot of time in the sun would slather on a thick coat of white cream containing zinc oxide, which blocks UV rays but doesn’t look that great on your face. Although sunscreens have improved since those days, they can still leave a whitish residue on your skin.

A company called Antaria uses nanoparticles of zinc oxide to make a sunscreen called ZinClear-IM. This sunscreen protects you from the UV without leaving behind a white coating.

Titanium dioxide is another material used in many sunscreens that can also leave a white residue. BASF is producing powders containing titanium dioxide nanoparticles called T-Lite, for use by sunscreen and cosmetics manufacturers. The titanium dioxide nanoparticles provide protection from UV rays without leaving a white residue.